


Meadowbrook MS

by Grace_Jackson



Category: Apocolypse - Fandom, post-apocolypse - Fandom
Genre: EMP, F/M, Meadowbrook, begining of a new apocolypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 00:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4040131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grace_Jackson/pseuds/Grace_Jackson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when everything goes dark? More importantly but what happens when everything goes dark and they aren't coming in any time soon or maybe ever? With no internet, no cellphones, no cars, or any thing electronic working the world just got a whole lot harder. But more importantly... How am I supposed to make it home from school?!?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meadowbrook MS

Dr. Marshal was on his “high horse” as he neared the end of today’s lecture in World History. It was a beautiful Fall Friday, however, nearing noontime, and I was just barely staying engaged as he reached the closing point he had built up to. And then suddenly the lights went out. Of course there was a titter of laughter (in which I may or may not have participated). Doc glanced up, momentarily, at the darkened bulbs, and then naturally just kept going: “I hope that each of you will choose to prosper in your own life in spite of this trend. Whether you can see an immediate benefit to yourself or not, just do the right thing. Always, always, endeavor to create value for those around you every single day.” “What would you think I might normally add here, Mr. Brookings?” he tossed at me. “That a rising tide floats all boats, sir?” He had only made that point once or twice a day since school started. “Exactly. And if you are an important source of that rising tide, how are the others going to look upon you?” “Well, in Brookings’ case, they will just see him as a necessary evil” Pardi Meador added with a grin. As usual, a gentle Pardi barb evoked a snicker from most of the class. Doc wondered aloud “Now, with all of this brilliance we have on display here today, why are we now sitting in the dark?” He walked to the door to peer down the hall. It was mid-morning, so it was not pitch dark or anything. A wave of quiet muttering broke out at the interruption. “It looks like all of the power in the building may be off” Doc mused. “Pardi, would you run down to the office and see if they know what is going on. If the power stays off more than a few seconds, it usually means it is going to take a while to get it back on. Especially here lately with that construction work over on the bypass.” “Sure Doc! I’ll be right back!” And knowing Pardi, he probably would. Even though he only had to go two doors down, he would be faster than I could have done it. We often gave credit to his Indian culture for Pardi’s productivity, but the truth was that he was one of the brainiacs in our class who seemed to work circles around the rest of us. Not that you’d want our beloved geeks on your soccer team, you understand. Len and Ducky and I often said to one another “OK, they’re geeks. But they’re OUR geeks.” “Well, it’s not all that dark in here after all” Doc Marshall continued, apparently thinking out loud. “Why don’t you get into your project groups for the rest of the period. Let’s see, we have about 12 minutes until lunch? OK, your Ticket-Out-The-Door is a group paragraph about the adequacy of your research sources thus far for your project, and a statement of what each person is to do next. You don’t need complete sentences. A list will do.” With Pardi gone from my group, that left only Len and Ducky and me in our group. Ducky, never one to be bothered by things like instructions, asked “Hey, what’s for lunch today? Anybody notice? It’s Friday, so hopefully they’ll “fry” something.” This was delivered with an elbow to my ribs and a roll of his eyes. Len was apparently hungry, so he went with Ducky’s lead. “Can’t you smell it, man? That’s got to be fried chicken! In my opinion, the single biggest advantage of being in a private school is you don’t have to listen to what the First Lady thinks about your school menu!” “I hope you’re right” I contributed. “Their chicken is good! Let’s hammer out this Ticket-Out-The-Door and go eat!” Len observed “Hey, that’s no fair that he sent Pardi out when we need to know about references. You guys know anything about any references?” Ducky started fishing through his notebook. “Guys” he asked, “didn’t Pardi send us an email about references last night? Wait a minute. I have my laptop with me.” He pulled his laptop out of his back pack and opened it up and turned it on. Well, at least he pushed the button. Then again. “OK, that’s funny, my machine isn’t starting up. I don’t remember my battery being that low.” “Here” Len replied. He maneuvered behind me a little so Doc wouldn’t see what he was doing. “I’ll check my cell phone. I know I saw that email too.” He looked puzzled as he stared at his screen. “What the heck! Nothing. I had 4 bars right before class. . .! About that time another group was calling Doc over to their table and pointing toward their laptops as they spoke. Momentarily, Pardi charged in the door and said, loud enough for everyone to hear “Mrs Stone thinks power may be out all over campus. And phones are down, and she doesn’t know why. Mr. Wheat is still not back from that field trip to Connors College with the girls this morning.” He paused to catch his breath. Obviously he had been running, and that was not Pardi’s strong suit. “Do you want me to go see if I can find Mr. McCann?” Angus McCann is our maintenance guru. “No” Doc countered. “Let’s just forget about Ticket-Out-The Door for now and just go on down to lunch. Maybe they will get the power back up and running by the time we are done.” There was, of course, no objection to getting to lunch a little early. The last I saw, Pardi was walking out the door with Doc Marshall, and the rest of my table was speed walking as fast as decorum would allow toward the lunch room. Definitely, that smells like chicken and rolls. It was a little bit dark in the lunchroom with the lights out. Mrs. Myers and Betty seemed unhappy about things on the serving line. But apparently lunch was served. I always thought it was somehow embarrassing to be first in line. So I let Ducky go first, which he was glad to do. Mrs. Myers almost always had a cheerful word as she served up your meal. But today she was conversing with Betty about how they were going to keep the food warm. Oh, well. Not my problem when I’m already served. Ducky and I headed for our usual table and tucked in. I don’t know how they do it, you know. The food always looks so simple but it tastes a whole lot better than what you would get at a restaurant. At least, any restaurant where my family normally eats. Len soon joined us, and we began talking about the slate of college football games tomorrow. Then Pardi joined us, and he seemed to be bursting with a question: “hey, do you guys have phone reception right now?” “No!” Len exclaimed! “My phone wouldn’t even turn on! What about you?” “Me neither!” said Pardi. He had that sort of far-away look he gets sometimes when he is thinking hard. “OK, now if the power outage hit our cell tower too, that could explain why we have no signal…” He seemed to be thinking out loud. We just let him run with it. But after several moments passed and he had nothing brilliant to add, Len took us back to tomorrow’s football. “Bucky” Rogers, a local kid from a larger high school was the sophomore quarterback for OU. We had played soccer against Bucky two years ago in a soccer camp. Let’s just summarize that he dazzled us. They had sprinkled a few older kids into our game to help us raise our level of play. Man, it had made a deep impression. I will admit to being an overly-fast eater. After a couple of minutes of deep concentration on my chicken and corn, my eyes drifted to Pardi, and I could see that his were locked on a table across the room. I followed his line of sight to where Dr. Marshall was sitting with Mr. McCann, and they were engaged in a fairly animated conversation. I saw Mr. McCann’s cell phone come out as he gestured to it. Doc seemed to be hanging on his every word. Angus McCann was the sort of guy who could make you listen intently. He was by title our Head of Maintenance for Meadowbrook Academy, but he also taught an industrial arts class that people practically fought to get into. It seemed that there was nothing technical that the man did not understand. He also teaches a Physics course that I have thus far managed to avoid. Frankly, the guy just practically lives at Meadowbrook. His kids are grown and his wife left him several years ago. I guess she didn’t like Industrial Arts stuff. Then, while I was sort of staring at their table with my mind running away, Dr. Marshall turned around and looked at me and motioned me to come over to their table. Mr. McCann got up at that same time and walked over to talk to Mrs. Mullins and Mrs. Stone, who were sitting at the next table. I quickly dumped my lunch trash and headed over to Doc’s table. On my way over, I saw a man wearing a Sam’s Club uniform and sweating like crazy come walking tentatively in the door. “That’s odd” I thought. Doc told me “Get your dessert or drink or whatever you have not finished, and let’s meet out at the big table on the veranda.” “Who is ‘us’ at this meeting?” I asked. “I’ll explain in a minute” he demurred. As we headed to the veranda Doc asked me “have you been having trouble with your cell phone too?” I guess he saw the look of consternation on my face, because he added ”no,no, nobody is in trouble here for using a cell phone! You have all been quite responsible about that as far as I can see!” We took seats at the table. Mr. McCann and Mrs. Mullins joined us. Doc began the meeting. I guess he is the ranking faculty member when Mr. Wheat is not here. “Thank you all for joining us for a quick impromptu meeting of EEC.” So that’s what this is. The Emergency Events Committee? What emergency is there? “I don’t want to alarm anyone that there is any sort of big emergency or anything, but we have encountered a situation here that is not exactly in our Emergency Guidelines. I mean, the power is off. On a fine bright day like this, that should be no problem if everyone is a little flexible. But it seems that all of our communications are down too. Cell phones, radios, TV, internet. And that is pretty odd. So I wanted us to touch base with one another and just agree on whether this requires any special actions on our part, or do we just ride it out until Mr. Wheat and the girls get back?” Angus McCann was the first to speak up. “Josh, as the elected student representative you have the right to be here, but I just want to remind you that we have to leave here with a single clear message. You read me?” “Uh, yes sir. I think so. But to be truthful, I don’t see much to report back to anyone so far.” I wondered what that comment was all about! “Well” Mr. McCann continued, “I want to say some things that probably don’t amount to anything. I mean, this will surely all blow over any minute and we will get on with our day”. He was clearly fumbling with his words, like he was deciding whether to just spit it out or hold something back. “But I think maybe we need to – just in case, mind you – do some preliminary, exploratory thinking outside the box.” Just at that moment, the door opened onto the veranda and Mrs. Stone entered the Veranda. “Charles” she said to Doc Hamilton, “I think maybe you ought to talk to this man for a moment before you get too far into your meeting.” She moved aside for the Sam’s Club guy to come out the door. “This is Bob Wales. He was making a delivery to us from Sam’s Club when the power went out. Maybe he ought to tell you the rest.” “Hi, Bob. Why don’t you tell us whatever it is that Mrs. Stone finds so interesting” Doc invited. “Hi, folks. As she -- Mrs Stone? -- said, I’m the driver and delivery man from Sam’s Club. I’m delivering mostly food for your lunchroom. About 20 minutes ago, when I was maybe a quarter mile from your school, my truck died. Just died. I tried to call in, and my phone was dead. I tried to tune in my radio to see if there was any news, like a truck hit a power pole or something, but there was no radio. So I just walked here. I never saw another car or truck on the road the whole way. In fact, it is sort of eerie quiet out there.” Doc said “Bob, why don’t you make yourself comfortable until things get up and running again. Emma, would you see if you can get him a bite of lunch, then would you join us out here for a few minutes?” Doc looked at Mr. McCann, and they exchanged some sort of look of understanding that I could not read. “OK, Angus, you were saying, about thinking outside the box?” “Can I say it?” Mr. McCann asked Doc. “Sure” Doc responded very smoothly, but squinted his eyes a bit as though he was not entirely sure what might be coming next. “Let’s just do some ‘what if’ kind of thinking. Now, understand, this may all blow over in the next 30 seconds, and thank goodness when it does! But if something weird happened and Mr. Wheat and the girls get delayed and we can’t communicate with parents over the next few hours, or whatever, I just want to be sure we are on top of things.” I must be missing something here. These two very senior men seem to beating around the bush a lot. “OK” Mr. McCann began “I am sure like everyone else that this is about to blow over any minute here. But there are some scenarios that might mean we could be in for some, some …” As he paused a moment to ponder his words, Doc jumped in “I think what Angus is trying to say is that we need to get ourselves organized for what might be an unusual afternoon. And then we will meet again to assess how things are progressing. Is that about right, Angus?” “Yes, Dr. Hamilton! Thank you for that turn of phrase. That is exactly it.” Mr. McCann looked quite relieved. There was something else he had started to say, and apparently Doc had gently bailed him out. I didn’t know if I was annoyed or maybe a little concerned. Dr. Hamilton is not a young man. I have him at least 60. Apparently he came here to teach chemistry, and then took on our history course as well. Nobody would accuse him of being a fireball, I would say. He was very good at what he did, but did not generally try to run other people’s business. He was generally very kind and thoughtful, and I had always seen him to yield the floor to almost anyone who wanted to take initiative. But today I was seeing something much more assertive in him. It was like he knew pretty much what he wanted to happen, and he was just guiding us all firmly toward it. He went on “Mr. McCann, are you free this afternoon to visit each classroom briefly and ask the teacher to run down and test their car to see if it will run.” Mr. McCann seemed to like this idea. “Yeah, that sounds good. I will also see if anyone has any kind of device that is contacting the outside world.” “I like that.” Doc opined. “Thanks. Can you let Emma know what you find? We might as well centralize in the Headmaster’s Office even if he isn’t here now. Now, Emma, would you come up with an up-to-the-minute list of all the students who were here today and where they are currently. Frankly, the ones with Mr. Wheat are probably in the best possible hands. You would want that man at your side in a jungle, a foxhole, or whatever.” “OK” Mrs. Stone assured him. “I got it. I will need a couple of student helpers. Can I have Pardi? Let him pick someone else?” “Good.” Doc responded. “Make that work. Please let their teacher know.” Then he turned to me. “Josh, I want you to find Coach Ray. I think he has a Phys Ed class this period. Here, let me jot him a note.” We all just waited the few moments it took him to jot out a note. “Just give this to him. Basically I want a crew of strong fellows to take some rope and pull that Sam’s truck up inside our gate. Better get Bob the driver to sit in the cab and steer it. Do you think that can be done?” Man, I wish we had camera to take a picture of that for the year book! Imagine a bunch of guys pulling a truck. But my cell phone is dead like everyone else’s. “Ok, Doc.” I sounded self-assured. “We’re on it!” This was almost beginning to sound sort of fun. Out of the ordinary. A bit of an adventure. With a little luck this could take most of the afternoon. Doc was really rolling now. “Now, Mrs. Mullins, I hope you are up to a bit of hiking! I would like for you to find a good student to accompany you, and head out to look for Meagan Hunt and her class. I thought we expected them back by lunch time, and it is after 1 now.” Everyone looked down at their watch, including me. “Hey, my watch has stopped” I exclaimed! “Mine too” said Mrs. Mullins. “And it is a brand new Seiko with a fresh battery.” “Mine is still working” said Doc. “Of course, it is a wind-up watch. . .” He and Mr. McCann exchanged those glances again. “OK, everybody.” Doc refocusing us. “Let’s get these tasks done, get our classes running, and meet back in the Headmaster’s conference room in about an hour. Sound good?” “Let’s do it” I submitted. I guess everyone agreed. We were all off.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! hope you've enjoyed the first chapter and will post two more to see how this takes off. This chapter is more like a pilot to see how the pubic likes it and I hope you enjoy!


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